{"id":7823,"date":"2025-03-31T12:04:03","date_gmt":"2025-03-31T12:04:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-the-gops-3-big-tests-in-april\/"},"modified":"2025-03-31T12:04:03","modified_gmt":"2025-03-31T12:04:03","slug":"capitol-agenda-the-gops-3-big-tests-in-april","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-the-gops-3-big-tests-in-april\/","title":{"rendered":"Capitol agenda: The GOP\u2019s 3 big tests in April"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Republicans are facing a trifecta of major challenges this week on President Donald Trump\u2019s legislative agenda, his trade war escalation and the biggest test of the party\u2019s political staying power since November. Here\u2019s a rundown of what\u2019s coming.<\/p>\n

News on Trump\u2019s legislative wish list<\/b>: Senate Republicans will move as soon as Wednesday<\/u><\/a> to start advancing the budget plan Congress has to approve to enact Trump\u2019s tax cuts, border agenda and energy policies.<\/p>\n

Senate Republicans are aiming to adopt a budget resolution before leaving for the weekend. A vote-a-rama could start as early as Thursday.<\/p>\n

Before they get there, senators expect to receive a decision from the Senate parliamentarian as soon as Tuesday or Wednesday on whether they can use an accounting maneuver known as current policy baseline, which would allow them to treat an extension of Trump\u2019s 2017 tax cuts as not costing anything. The Senate GOP needs the parliamentarian to make that call before moving ahead.<\/p>\n

On the sidelines, the \u201cBig Six\u201d tax negotiators \u2014 Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo and Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith \u2014 are set to meet Tuesday. Senate Finance Republicans will meet ahead of time on Monday night. House Ways and Means Republicans will gather Thursday for an all-day session to continue hashing out the tax bill.<\/p>\n

Even if Republicans succeed in nailing down a budget blueprint before Easter, they\u2019re still punting key fights over how to pay for Trump\u2019s plans. Trump\u2019s push for action now and unity later has the House and Senate GOP moving ahead with budget numbers that don\u2019t match up<\/u><\/a> \u2014 meaning the chambers\u2019 committees aren\u2019t aligned on deficit reduction targets. House committees will be asked to cut at least $2 trillion, while Senate committees might be directed to find a minimum of a few billion dollars.<\/p>\n

Tariff tensions<\/b>: Trump is threatening to ratchet up tariffs Wednesday \u2014 what he\u2019s calling \u201cLiberation Day\u201d \u2014 and Hill Republicans are scrambling to shield their states<\/u><\/a> from the impacts. GOP lawmakers are coordinating with industry groups to push for exemptions.<\/p>\n

What makes it harder for Republicans is that no one but Trump is fully certain what these tariffs will look like. That\u2019s causing unease<\/u><\/a> among White House officials and Trump\u2019s allies. Senate Democrats are hoping to capitalize on Republican discomfort around the issue by forcing a vote aimed at blocking Trump\u2019s Canada tariffs<\/u><\/a> as soon as Tuesday.<\/p>\n

One of the reasons Trump has been pushing to increase the scope of the tariffs is to be able to claim hundreds of billions of dollars in more revenue that he believes will pay for a large chunk of his massive domestic policy bill, said three people with direct knowledge. Some Republicans are anxious about this move, arguing it’s a clear-cut budget gimmick and that tariffs likely won\u2019t drive that much revenue.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s political test<\/b>: Two special elections are on tap Tuesday in Florida to replace former Reps. Matt Gaetz and Mike Waltz. Republican Randy Fine\u2019s bid to succeed Waltz in the state\u2019s deep-red 6th District has been a huge headache for the GOP, with the party fearing the race will be closer than expected<\/u><\/a>. As BLN reported last week, NRCC chief Rep. Richard Hudson and Majority Whip Tom Emmer warned Fine<\/u><\/a> to \u201cget his shit together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meredith Lee Hill, Jordain Carney, Jennifer Scholtes and Benjamin Guggenheim contributed reporting.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republicans are facing a trifecta of major challenges this week on President Donald Trump\u2019s legislative agenda, his trade war escalation and the biggest test of the party\u2019s political staying power since November. Here\u2019s a rundown of what\u2019s coming. News on Trump\u2019s legislative wish list: Senate Republicans will move as soon as Wednesday to start advancing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7823\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}